1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, an information processing system, and a recording medium. More particularly, the invention relates to an information processing apparatus for searching a printing apparatus (hereinafter, simply referred to as a printer) which can print under desired print conditions from a plurality of printers connected to a network and transmitting print data to the searched printer, an information processing method for such an apparatus, an information processing system to which a plurality of devices including the information processing apparatus and printers are connected through the network, and a computer readable recording medium which records a print processing procedure for searching a printer having predetermined print conditions and selecting a printer on the print destination side.
2. Related Background Art
A service called a directory service has been provided as a method of efficiently finding out various resources (printer, server, scanner, etc.) (hereinafter, those resources are generally called “network devices”) connected to a network such as an LAN (Local Area Network) or the like and using them.
The directory service is a service having a function as a telephone book (directory) regarding the network. As is standard, for example, an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) has been known. The regulations of the LDAP have been disclosed in the RFC (Request For Comments) 1777 issued from the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) as research and development facilities of the Internet. As a description of the LDAP, for example, “LDAP Internet Directory Application Programming” (issued on Nov. 1, 1997) issued by Plentis Hall Co., Ltd. has been known.
For example, a network device such as a printer or the like connected to the network can be searched by using the directory service, so that the user can obtain a list of network addresses of the devices which can be used on the network.
In case of searching the printer as a network device, however, since there are a variety of search conditions of the printer such as paper size, permission/inhibition of a duplex printing, permission/inhibition of a color printing, and the like, there is a problem such that it is troublesome when the user sets the search conditions.
After a print command was issued to a specific printer, when a command indicative of an attribute mismatch is returned from the specific printer, a print attribute is designated after such a command was received, thereby searching the printer adapted to the desired print attribute. Therefore, there is a problem such that it takes a long time until the completion of a printing process after the issue of the print command, work contents are also complicated, and a working efficiency is deteriorated.